Upcoming cuts to social care support have been criticised as one firm boss warned of potentially fatal consequences. Bristol City Council will cut a fifth of the budget for preventative services that help people stay independent.
Tenants in sheltered housing who are supported by the Help When You Need It service pleaded with the adult social care policy committee not to cut the budget on Monday, October 21. The service prevents people from becoming homeless, going to hospital or needing extensive care.
Bristol spends £3.8 million a year on preventative services, including the Home Improvement Agency and Help When You Need It. About £500,000 will be cut from their budgets next year, as the council tries to fill a whopping £52 million funding gap.
Michelle Richards, housing services director of Brunelcare, manages the Help When You Need It service for people living in sheltered housing. She urged councillors not to support the cuts, as they would impact both tenants and the wider healthcare system in Bristol with extra costs.
She said: “Without this support, many of our tenants would revert to accessing support from other council services, creating additional pressure and costs to the wider system. Currently our system is very proactive. We know our tenants. Our support workers are very responsive: a tenant could call them today and they will be there tomorrow.”
Brunelcare also holds another contract, to provide support to people living elsewhere. As part of the cuts, the council will extend this community support. But existing community support services have a long waiting list before people can receive help.
Ms Richards added: “What we’ve been told and our new tenants have been told is that the new service would be a self-referral service. They would have to identify when they’re in crisis, when they need that help. They would then need to contact whoever that provider is, which might not be us, so people that they wouldn’t know.
“Then a decision is made as to whether they meet the criteria to sit on a waiting list until they can receive that support. Tenants have said to us ‘I would be dead by the time that support comes’.”
Tenants living in sheltered housing also spoke to councillors before the vote, urging them not to cut their vital support. Leacroft Robinson, a Brunelcare tenant for nearly two years, has received support numerous times from the Help When You Need It service.
He said: “They have made a huge difference to me. The team provided support to help me budget, as well as securing a grant for new furniture and support from the Food Poverty Fund, which allowed me to remain independent in my own home.
“When I had a period of ill health, I withdrew into myself. But the team were there again to offer emotional support and signpost me towards counselling services — which greatly improved my mental health and made me feel less isolated.
“I was so low at times I even thought about suicide. They have helped to save my life and make me feel part of my community. The support and reassurance from the team has helped me to find strength inside myself I never thought I had.”
Joanna Fryer, a Brunelcare tenant for 15 years, receives support from the service after suffering a stroke. She said: “They identified benefits I didn’t think I was entitled to, or had the ability to apply for them myself. They are helping me to maximise my income, maintain my independence, and improve my quality of life.
“The Help When You Need It team is a safety net that we can rely on when we need support, and they are always just a phone call away. Without the team, there’s a large number of older people who could potentially end up in a crisis, if they haven’t been able to get the vital help and support they may need.”
Jane Risdale, another tenant, added: “They help me manage my finances, checking if there are any benefits I could receive, and they also help me cope with debts and making sure I’m on top of paperwork, bills and correspondence. All of this has helped me sustain my tenancy and stay in my home.
“They have also maintained my independence by helping me register with a GP and organise hospital appointments and help me to manage my medication. They have helped me to improve my self-esteem and make me feel more in control. Without the support of the Help When You Need It team, I wouldn’t manage to live independently in my home.
“They help me keep my pride, dignity and self-respect. You’ve only got to ring them and they’ll help you. I really don’t want to lose them. They’re very important to us and they go beyond what their job is.”
As part of the changes, the budget for community support will increase. This means the support will be based on people’s needs, rather than if they live in specific sheltered housing, but only provided for a limited time. The council had also considered cutting support for people with HIV, but decided to extend this support for another year.
Thom Wilson, interim deputy director for commissioning at the council, said: “It’s now very unusual for these services to persist. Bristol has continued these services up to now — I’ve worked in a number of other councils and these services aren’t there. We think it’s more equitable for the support to be based on your needs rather than where you live.
“People in the scheme currently, that service is there for them all the time. Whereas we would like to provide it in a focused way to people in the community, including in sheltered housing, who need it for a period of time. However people won’t have that permanent safety blanket that they’ve got now, but that’s only available to a very small proportion of older people in the city.”
The council doesn’t have to provide these services by law, unlike the majority of services provided by the social care department. Even though they represent a small fraction of the department’s budget, that means they are easier to cut.
The four Green councillors voted in favour of the cuts to the Help When You Need It contracts, while the remaining four councillors on the committee voted against. Liberal Democrat Cllr Jos Clark left the meeting halfway through, after criticising the cuts but before voting on them. As the vote was tied, the committee chair was able to use her casting vote in favour of the cuts.
Speaking after the meeting, Green Councillor Lorraine Francis, chair of the social care committee, said: “While we are reducing the total funding to these contracts by 20 per cent, the council will also be increasing support in some areas. This includes funding for people with mental health issues and older people living in the community.
“Following consultation feedback, we have also extended the current contract for support for people with HIV for another year. These preventative services do not exist in some other local authorities, so I am proud that Bristol is continuing to provide them under difficult financial circumstances.
“However, I recognise that any reduction in discretionary spend, which is being reviewed across the council, will have an impact on people’s lives, which will be minimised as much as possible. It is vital to stress that the tenants who kindly attended yesterday’s meeting will continue to be safe and secure in their homes, supported by Brunelcare.”
The decision to find savings in adult social care was taken by the former Labour administration earlier this year, before the Greens won recent local elections. The committee was warned by council bosses that if preventative services weren’t cut, then other budgets elsewhere would be.
Cllr Francis added: “As a committee and a council, we have a responsibility to balance this impact against the failure to set a legal budget. If we cannot set a balanced budget, the funding of these local services will be taken out of our hands, and everything that isn’t a statutory requirement will be at risk, including all these services.
“But no one in this council wants to reduce spending on preventative support. The Labour government needs to provide more funding to local authorities so we can provide more preventative support to help our most vulnerable residents.”
Labour Cllr Kelvin Blake, vice-chair of the committee, successfully tabled an amendment to the changes to the Home Improvement Agency, meaning any cuts will be delayed while the council “co-designs” the new service with staff and residents.
Cllr Blake said: “Councils should be investing in preventative services — not cutting them. Taking early action leads to better health outcomes and saves the taxpayer money in the long-run. I’m glad councillors backed our proposal to not proceed with the cut to the Home Improvement Agency service, but instead take time to co-design the new contract with service providers and residents.
“We wanted to do the same with the Help When You Need It contract but, unfortunately, this proposal was rejected by the legal officer. So, we opposed those savings in hopes the Green Party would bring back a fairer way to balance the books. All the Green councillors voted for the cuts, leading to a tie, so the chair used her casting vote to push it through.
“While some of the policies that passed today will cause harm, I’m glad they’ve u-turned on the proposed cut to services for people living with HIV, instead choosing to extend the contract for another year. Of all the proposed cuts, that one seemed particularly harsh — it should have never been on the table in the first place.”